Welcome to wplace: A chaotic, collaborative digital canvas where users ‘paint the world’

New York – In a new internet corner, users are invited to “paint the world”. And the painting they have. Welcome to Wplace – A global gamified card in constant evolution overflowing with drawings made on a canvas of more than 4,000 pixels.

Images of the Icelandic singer Laufey float on Reykjavík, while the tributes for the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla surround Corpus Christi, Texas. The crest of San Lorenzo and other football clubs fill Buenos Aires. The Fanart “Squid Game” can be found on the outskirts of Seoul. And Walter White’s opening monologue of “Breaking Bad” is near Albuquerque, in New Mexico.

Wplace launched on July 21, but the work of art is already overwhelming – ranging from simple characters of sticks and thin words, colored fanart and very detailed images that users create under online pseudonyms.

“It’s wild, chaotic and raw,” said Yotam Ophir, a communication teacher at the University of Buffalo whose research includes the analysis of digital spaces. This is part of the Wplace call, he added, describing the site as a little “rebellion” against what the Internet has become.

“It’s not going to break Facebook,” he said. “But it’s a kind of recall that things can be done differently.”

Wplace has collected more than 10.6 million users around the world from Thursday, the co-founder Enzo Watanabe told the Associated Press. With this explosion in just over a month, moderation challenges have appeared. Watanabe declared by e -mail that the growth of the project “had exceeded all expectations” – but recognized that “adaptation to high demand was difficult”.

The game has been developed in Brazil over three months by one person, he said, and is now managed by a 46-year-old team, in addition to volunteers.

New users start with a small fixed number of pixels and more become available every 30 seconds. The more you contribute, the more there are pixels at your disposal – in a way “like a leveling system” in video games, said Moira Hembns, a 19 -year -old user from Edmonton, Alberta.

Even with larger pixel pools, it can take a long time to give life to card paintings. “Each work of art takes me hours to design in advance,” said the Hembns. A drawing that she recently finished, of a Pokémon named Leafeon in her hometown, took her two days to design outside Wplace-then another day to build, she said.

But the Hembns note that she likes art and checks the map and places the pixels almost every morning now. Muhammad Aliy Fattah Bin Yusrizal, a 21 -year -old from Malaysia, says Wlace has become a outlet for his creativity.

The site “is one of the places I can express myself,” said Fattah, noting that he mainly contributed to art dedicated to his favorite video games and placed at the top of his country of origin.

Users from around the world are also joining forces to give life to more important projects – such as “the neighborhood”, which is in a corner of Yuma County, Arizona. The resident of real life Krista Rider, 25, started by drawing two houses. It now has more than 50, connected by paths, grass plates and rivers.

“I wanted to do something nice that could raise people, give them something to which they feel like they are contributing, whether big or small,” said rider.

A large part of the wplace spaces are filled with an endless fan of pop culture references – often linked to the symbols of local and national identity, protest and other reflections in everyday life seen in the world. In his own time by browsing the Wplace card, Ophir notes that he saw everything, small cities highlighting a restaurant they love, tributes to local musicians, broader images of political tensions and global conflicts.

“In a way, each person is zooming out what reflects them and who is,” said Ophir.

Above Gaza, users painted Palestinian flags and messages of solidarity in the middle of the War in the course of Israel. Images of war are also visible on the border between Russia and Ukraine – some use their pixels to represent tanks or military aircraft, while others write messages calling for peace. Washington, DC, is covered with political messages, many of which focus on President Donald Trump.

Carly Kocurek, associate dean of the Lewis College of Science and Letters at Illinois Tech and director of the school game design program, says that there is a long history of “digital spaces as places of protest”.

This expressive desire, she said, is part of the reason why people look (wplace), even if it is not necessarily what they do there. “”

While not filtered chaos is undoubtedly a large part of the point of the interactive card of Wplace, the site always describes the general rules with less inappropriate content, bots, to disclose the personal information of someone else or to paint on other arts “using colors or random models just to spoil things”. Wplace says that he has systems in place to erase the drawings that go against his rules – and a report button to report serious cases.

But users of online discussion discussions dedicated to Wplace have complained that such moderation is not applied or approached in a timely manner – with a stressful particular concern concerning hatred speeches and Doxing.

“The quantity of moderators they have currently is not really enough for the number of people who are really on the site,” explains Aaron Hickerson, a 35 -year -old user in Germany. “This leaves somehow the system they have overwhelmed.”

Some say they have seen their work disturbed – or, in terms of video games, “sorrow” – by the same users over and over. And others highlighted the art of the card which includes racist words or images, sexually explicit content, vandalized pride flags and Nazi symbols. In response, users made collective calls to help cover such content.

WPlace said it aims to “continue to improve” moderation – in addition to seeking technology that will help server performance and potentially offer more security features.

“The challenge is great, but we are doing our best,” said Watanabe.

Some users have also used their art simply covered over time. Emily Northrip, a student in Boston, recently finished a drawing of the invincible superhero character. Upon his return a few days later, someone else attracted students to his glasses.

But Northrip found the addition funny. Wplace is “a public server,” she said, “if someone wants to draw something on your pixels, they can.”

Jessa Lingel, associate professor of communication at the Annenberg school of the University of Pennsylvania, notes that people gathered to support collaborative spaces like Wikipedia or even the Archives of ours. However, it requires a lot of work. And “unfortunately, the long arc of the story of the Internet does not lean towards self-regulation or responsibility,” she notes.

With the resources necessary to meet the demand for eruption, some wonder if Wplace should continue to accept new submissions forever.

“I certainly do not want it that it remains forever, because I think it will only disintegrate if this is the case,” said the embassies, noting that WPlace could perhaps create an instantaneous card capturing the card so far – or a break and open future contributions later, similar to a predecessor, R / Reddit place is now achieved.

Watanabe said Thursday that AP WPlace intended to “continue to welcome new contributions”, as well as to organize events on the platform.

Regardless of the future of Wplace, experts like Lingel expect that pockets of artistic collaboration continue to go out online – even they do not draw attention.

“Some last longer than others, and some are splashing – and others are simply used quietly in a little internet corner that most people do not know,” she said. “They are just who notices them.”

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Luna brought back to Los Angeles.